The Cricket Society is a charitable organisation founded in 1945 as the Society of Cricket StatisticiansatGreat Scotland Yard, London. It has grown steadily to be the largest body of its kind in the cricket world. The Cricket Society now has over 1,500 members in the United Kingdom and the cricket playing countries of the world. Its current President is John Barclay.
The Cricket Society instigated an Annual Book of the Year Award in 1970 that now, in association with the MCC, hosts an Awards Evening in the Long RoomatLord's each spring.[1]
In 2020 the Society instituted the Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship, which is given to an individual or institution that has contributed a significant body of work to the history of the game. Recent winners include Ramachandra Guha in 2022 and Clem Seecharan in 2023.
Throughout the calendar year, The Society holds monthly meetings, featuring famous names from cricket, for members and guests at diverse locations in Central London, usually the Union Jack Club or the Civil Service Club.
Through its Charitable Trust, it raises money to coach underprivileged children in the skills of cricket. They link up with various organisations such as the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation to achieve these aims.
The Society has a cricket team which plays at a number of venues each season. It also holds meetings for the members in London (as detailed above), Bath, Birmingham and Durham at which invited speakers address the audience. These activities are held to maintain an interest in cricket and both inform and entertain its members and guests through the off-season.
The Cricket Society publishes a journal, bi-annually and a regular news bulletin, 6 times per year, for its subscribed membership.
The Society commissioned E.W. Padwick to compile a comprehensive bibliography of cricket literature under the title A Bibliography of Cricket. The first edition, published in 1977 by the Library Association had 8,294 entries.[2] A revised edition, published in 1984, extended this to over 10,000 entries (ISBN978-0853659020). A second volume, published in 1991 as Padwick's Bibliography of Cricket, Volume 2, was compiled by Stephen Eley and Peter Griffiths and covers works published between 1980 and 1990 (ISBN978-0853655282).
The Cricket Society began naming a book of the year in 1970. Since 2009 the award has been made in partnership with MCC.[3] It carries a prize of £3000, which is presented at an awards evening each spring in the Long Room at Lord's.[4]
2008: No award with this date. Before 2008 the award was for books published in the year of the award; after 2008 the award was for books published the previous year.
2009: Life Beyond the Airing CupboardbyJohn Barclay
2010: Of Didcot and the Demon: The Cricketing Times of Alan Gibson by Anthony Gibson
2017: A Beautiful Game: My Love Affair with CricketbyMark Nicholas
2018: Connie: The Marvellous Life of Learie ConstantinebyHarry Pearson
2019: Steve Smith's Men: Behind Australian Cricket's Fall by Geoff Lemon
2020: The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville CardusbyDuncan Hamilton; The Final Innings: The Cricketers of Summer 1939byChristopher Sandford (shared)
2021: The Unforgiven by Ashley Gray
2022: Who Only Cricket Know: Hutton's Men in the West Indies 1953/54 by David Woodhouse
2023: An Island's Eleven: The Story of Sri Lankan Cricket by Nicholas Brookes
2024: The Tour: The Story of the England Cricket Team Overseas 1877-2022bySimon Wilde
1• 1945-1946 A. Weigall
2• 1946-1947 Capt. J. A. Bayliss
3• 1947-1953 G. A. Copinger
4• 1953-1960 A. R. Whitaker
5• 1960-1965 Dr R. W. Cockshut
6• 1965-1966 L. E. S. Gutteridge
7• 1966-1983 C. C. W. Box-Grainger
8• 1983-1992 R. N. Haygarth
9• 1992-2003 D. Allsop
10• 2003-2008 W. R. Allen
11• 2008 I. R. Jackson
12• 2008-2012 D. E. Barnard
13•
2012-2021 N. Hancock [1]
14. 2023 - to date P. M. Hardy
